


nor the old country road

by philthestone



Series: and there's a keepsake my mother gave me [4]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, i cried while writing this what else is new [dabs]
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-10 05:19:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12904929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: I know there’s more to it than this,he’d said –Popshad said, along with it the pleasant request that she call him by his familial moniker.But lookin’ at him now, I almost – it’s like I got a chance to see bits of Meredith get older like she never did.They had been sitting outside on the front porch, she and he, in an odd companionable silence that Gamora had silently relished. Peter had been sprawled on the couch, fallen asleep halfway through digging through boxes of old junk, long limbs hanging down to the floor and only partially covered by the blanket his grandfather had draped over him.





	nor the old country road

**Author's Note:**

> catch me not working on starman w finals a week away but here we all are
> 
> set in the same timeline as all the other fics in this series, w elements inspired by @perilinpeace's gorgeous works
> 
> reviews are Good And Healing Things

They’ve only been here for the lesser part of ten days, but she’s learned to be able to tell when a storm is coming. 

The very first time, she had foolishly assumed that the clearness of the sky directly above them was reliable enough to linger a while – enough that they had some time before crowding into the car and driving home. She had been wrong; they’d only barely missed the sudden sheet-like downpour, still caught in its first throes from their scramble across the drive into the front of the house. 

Gamora, her hair thick with the rain that snuck up on them despite Peter’s amused insistence that they hurry back, had stood dripping in the middle of Pops’s kitchen. She had taken a moment to marvel, eyes lingering on the brightness of Peter’s smile even as he blinked the rainwater out of his eyes; it was the first time since they touched down on Terra that he’d been completely, totally, and utterly at ease.

He’d been able to tell, Gamora had thought, watching him blink the rain out of his eyes and holler for Pops – asking whether or not he had any spare towels. He’d looked up at the clear sky and sucked at his bottom lip through his teeth and somehow been able to smell the rain in the air. It struck her as a kind of simple, imprinted skill, the sort deceptively basic but integral to the makeup of one’s person, slipped back on like an old, worn pair of boots are the minute they’re in front of you again. 

She knows, for example, that she still silently mouths along the words to whatever she’s reading when she is alone; Peter can look up at the blue Missouri sky and know that it’s going to rain.

Pops did have towels, many to spare, in fact. Gamora is sure that the memory of that afternoon will be one that remains with her always, its pieces tied delicately together with the mix of smells, gasoline from the garage twisting together with the odd lingering sweetness of cake that filled the house; the rough abrasion of the thick, old towels against their damp arms; the feeling, deep and settling, like some small piece of _being_ was knitting itself back together in tandem with the gradual drying of their clothes. She is sure that she will not ever forget the taste of Pops’s strong black coffee on her tongue, meant to warm them both up. She is sure that she’ll remember the brief press of Peter’s lips always, her exact position on the living room couch with the old quilt on the back as he did it, the light in Pops’s eyes when Peter had said, 

“I told her it was gonna hit us if we didn’t leave sooner.”

Peter had told her in a stolen whisper under the blankets their first night in this unfamiliar house of his childhood that he could see a small part of her that he’d never known before, slowly creeping its way to the surface like it was finally let free.

Perhaps the actual articulation of the thought was a bit less eloquent, but his eyes had locked with hers, bright even in the dimmed room, as Gamora breathed in and out and listened to the sound of what he called _crickets_ floating in through the window. She was not sure how to respond, did not doubt his honesty, and could not fathom the reality of such a statement.

That afternoon on the couch, six days after, she realized what he meant as she watched a small, unique piece of the man she loved heal, inch by inch in the worn Missouri living room.

Gamora takes a moment now to wonder how Peter can see that in her when she has no home like this to return to, no simple gravestone to kneel before.

The day is warm, sunny, like she’s come to realize most days in Missouri can be. Gamora turns her hand in the grass so that she can properly lace her fingers through his, her palm facing upwards, towards the sun. It’s there – the sun is – but there’s a slight breeze picking up again, and a humidity catching at the underneath of Gamora’s hair. She’s been here ten days – that is enough for her to be able to taste in the air that a storm is coming.

Right now, sitting cross-legged in the grass, he’s not quite at ease, like he was in the living room. It’s different from the skittish tension that he tried so hard to hide, the stuff she’d felt woven into his bones in the weeks after Thanos. It’s gentle, maybe.

Gamora has taken a long time to relearn the word _gentle_. 

Beside her, Peter breathes in, prolonged.

“Hi, Mom,” he says, finally, after nearly a half hour of sitting silent under the big blue painting above them.

It dawns on her right at that moment that he’s not had the opportunity to say those words once in the past thirty years.

He doesn’t say anything else, and Gamora ignores the swell of emotion that threatens to tighten her throat. Meredith Quill’s grave is simple; grey stone and delicate script, weather-worn but clearly cared for. It is her turn to inhale, deeply, and she squeezes Peter’s hand. He squeezes back.

She thinks about the foreign sound of crickets heard from the front porch, the feel of the old knitted quilt hung over the living room couch looking like it had been there forever. The taste of the dust clinging to the boxes packed away in the closet of a room once belonging to a child. The look of loose Terran sleepwear on Peter’s frame, rumpled when he’d fallen asleep on the couch with those boxes in pieces, their content and memories spread out across the entire room. She thinks about the blue and orange of the antique car in the garage, the sadness in an old man’s voice, the way the next door neighbor’s mouth dropped open at the sight of them. 

She thinks about how Pops had opened the door, with no prior warning or call, and _known_.

Another deep breath, and the sky above them shifts.

“I miss you,” Peter says. He isn’t whispering, but it feels like he is. Like the essence of the words is a whisper. “Sorry I didn’t come sooner. Things were – weird.” She hears the hitch in his breath and doesn’t change her grip on his hand. “But – anyway, uh. I’m here, now, ‘n ‘m not sure – I just.”

Another deep breath, another tightening of hands. She remembers, three nights in, past the first pangs of awkwardness and the initial brittleness of lingering hurt; after the bitter anger at Pops’s recollection of the man Meredith had loved so much – the commiseration over the badly-hidden dislike in the old man’s voice. After all of that, three nights in, she had woken to the sound of his breath hitching, to the silent notes of Peter falling apart against her shoulder. He missed his mother, he had said, voice clogged and muffled, the words sounding more like an admission to the universe rather than a statement directed to Gamora herself. 

Gamora does not remember her parents well enough to miss them. 

“I love you,” Peter decides on now, words thick and full with tears that are markedly different from night before’s. He’s completely still, which is new and different, foreign on his usually fidgety limbs. Perhaps a mark of that small healing piece, she thinks; she’s not sure. 

“That’s it,” says Peter. “I just wanted to say that one more time.”

He’d apologized, the night he asked her how she would feel about coming to Missouri; he’d worried, that it was too much, that she herself needed time to heal, that he was being selfish.

Abruptly, Gamora can’t think of anywhere else in the universe that she could learn the meaning of healing like this. 

She swallows, and looks up. They’re going to be caught in the rain again, without the shadow of a doubt. She doesn’t mind at all, somehow – almost looks forward to telling the others about it, looks forward to describing the exact feel of the rain to Mantis, the gunning of a car engine to Rocket and Groot, the thrill of running indoors to Drax, the warmth of rough blankets to Nebula. 

Her head has found its way to Peter’s shoulder and Gamora looks at the simple grey stone in front of them and realizes that there is still much left of life to live. 

She breathes, and smells the rain in the air.

**Author's Note:**

> im,,,, obsessed w the idea of peter and gamora learning different ways of healing from each other (also other people but the two of them specifically would approach healing very differently and fill in each others gaps)
> 
> for a happy go lucky franchise with boppin tunes and inappropriate jokes this house sure is Sad


End file.
